


Never But In Unapproached Light

by SpaceCadetGlow



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Sex, Angels, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Demons, Dominance, Dominant Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Time, Hair-pulling, Historical, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Masochism, Metaphysical Sex, Metaphysics, Oral Sex, Pining, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roleplay, Romance, Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Heavenly Virtues, Sexual Roleplay, Slow Burn, Submission, Submissive Crowley (Good Omens), Theology, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-19 22:56:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19981918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceCadetGlow/pseuds/SpaceCadetGlow
Summary: Their differences are what fascinate them, what keep them apart, and what eventually bring them together.  "Aziraphale is a mountain, an ocean, a nebula, contained in this unassuming corporation, and Crowley is its dark mirror; they are binary stars locked in eternal orbit."[AKA the one that plays up the angel and demon stuff.]





	Never But In Unapproached Light

**Author's Note:**

> This fic plays with the idea of them being really into the angel-vs-demon thing and all that it entails (sexually and otherwise), including metaphysical stuff like Aziraphale's holiness being painful to Crowley, risk of falling, Deadly Sins, etc. I also used it as an exercise in writing a romance that avoids any major scenes between them in the show -- which is to say that this story is book-compliant, but doesn't contradict anything in the show, either. 
> 
> Title from Paradise Lost, with gratitude to Milton for bringing us the original infernal angst. ;) 
> 
> Unbeta'd, so drop a comment if there are any glaring errors, words missing/repeated, etc.

**Presently**

Aziraphale runs his hands upward again to tangle in Crowley's tousled hair. "Is there-- that is, would you, make it longer? For me, dear."

Crowley grins, sharp teeth glinting. "Make _what_ longer, exactly?" Aziraphale rolls his eyes and _pulls_ , and Crowley's grin turns into a low indulgent laugh for his petulant, demanding angel.

Aziraphale tuts and purses his lips. "Your hair, you wicked thing."

Preening at the compliment, Crowley raises his eyebrows suggestively. "And how long do you want it to be, you know, to make it really good for you?"

Aziraphale doesn't take the bait. "Like it was in Eden, you had the most lovely curls then." He steps back with an expectant look, no doubt in his mind that he will get what he wants.

There is no doubt in Crowley's mind either. He likes learning new things about Aziraphale, likes finding new idiosyncrasies to obsess over, new peculiarities to file away and treasure, new weaknesses to exploit. He closes his eyes and concentrates, and as he exhales his deep auburn hair begins to coil down and cascade over his shoulders. When his eyes open, they are completely golden, thin black slits the only contrast against the rich color. "There," he says. "Just like old times. Shall I hiss at you?"

"You didn't hiss at me then," says Aziraphale, running his soft, strong hands gently through the long curls. "My, but you are beautiful."

"No, but I was going to," Crowley says, closing the little distance between them. One hand grips Aziraphale's hip, the other rests lightly on the back of his neck. _Mine._ "I was going to gloat and taunt and spit venom. I hated you." He brushes his lips over Aziraphale's temple and murmurs, "I only talked to you to try and get a rise out of you."

Aziraphale takes a coil of hair around his finger, close to Crowley's scalp, and tugs sharply. "Come back where I can see you. I want to see your eyes." Crowley's breath hitches and he draws back. Aziraphale meets his gaze, level and certain. "I seem to recall a very courteous conversation. You behaved yourself admirably."

"I wasn't expecting to get _fascinated,_ now, was I?" Crowley drawls, far more nonchalantly than he actually feels. He's starting to get wound up now, and he doesn't know if this will end with him buried inside of Aziraphale or down at his feet, both seeming equally likely and equally pleasurable options. He growls, not wanting to wait any longer to find out. "You weren’t like the others. You fascinated me, angel," he says, pressing himself up against Aziraphale, making him take a step back, and then another, and then another, until his shoulders bump the wall. "And then... oh, then, I could have _devoured_ you."

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Some Time Ago**

Aziraphale, for all of his curious human habits, for all of his creature comforts and little indulgences, is a celestial being of great power, older than time itself. And while other angels perhaps thought less of him, thought he was too soft or too attached to the world of mortals, he had no less strength or determination than any of them. When he knew what he wanted, he found a way to get it, and he enjoyed it. He took pleasure in these things without shame, because what was the harm, really? The one wrench that stuck in the gears of that particular philosophy, so to speak, was a certain demon with a penchant for trousers that were too tight to be anything but miracled on.

He had had a bit of carnal knowledge over the centuries, so it wasn't that he couldn't place his feelings. And as a being of Love, he knew that what he felt wasn't simple divine benevolence. No, the issue came down to two factors. One, he'd never had such feelings for an equal before -- while Aziraphale was wholly convinced of the superiority of Heaven, he and Crowley were essentially equals, in any way that mattered. And two, he knew the pursuit of these feelings would be a capital-letter Bad Idea, so unthinkable that there weren't even any rules against it, simply because no one had ever considered it before -- Crowley was a demon, and therefore his enemy, in the way that mattered the most. However, Aziraphale was in possession of a quick and analytical mind, and when he considered the facts, they were these:

Crowley had never tried to tempt him. Or if he had, Aziraphale supposed, it hadn't worked. (Or perhaps Crowley was so very cunning and subtle that Aziraphale didn't realize what was happening, but he doubted that.) At any rate, he had witnessed the demon in action, exerting his will over an unsuspecting human. He had felt Crowley's power like a dark cloud passing overhead, as the demon guided people into sin, urged them down one path when they might have taken another, and Crowley's favorite, making conditions just unpleasant enough that the humans took whatever nasty ideas lay latent in their own minds, and ran with them further than any demon could have imagined. When they are together, although their meetings are largely business-related, they behave as though they're off the clock.

Crowley does things for him -- the odd blessing or miracle as per their Arrangement, yes, but beyond that as well. He does things without being asked, pays for their lunches more often than not. "Crime pays," he used to smirk. He brings him little trinkets that he finds on his travels, first editions and apocrypha. "Happened across this in a village outside of Lisbon," he'd say, tossing a yellowed book onto Aziraphale's desk, replying to the angel's exclamations with little more than, "Rare, you say? Just looked like a musty old book to me."

The books are a particular sticking point, as are the opera and Shakespeare's tragedies, all things Aziraphale knows Crowley dislikes (he prefers television, the symphony, and comedies, respectively). He doesn't waste time with things that don't interest him, except for when he does. And when he does, Aziraphale also happens to be there. Funny, that.

Lust was also there, certainly. Aziraphale can feel Lust roiling off of Crowley's corporation, practically a visible shimmer in the air. But it was right there alongside Avarice, and Pride, and the others in varying degrees, and that was hardly Crowley's own fault anymore. Though it made the angel uncomfortable on occasion, Crowley couldn't help it any more than Aziraphale could help projecting Kindness and Diligence. If Lust, or any of the rest, was directed toward Aziraphale in particular, he couldn't tell.

And on the topic of sins and virtues, Aziraphale had started to think that perhaps things were not as black and white as he'd prefer, especially while in human corporations.

"That's Gluttony, that is," Crowley says, as Aziraphale happily partakes in a pastry after dinner.

"It's not Gluttony, it's dessert," Aziraphale responds, a familiar step in this dance, this game that they play. "It's nice."

"Sin feels nice, that's the point," he grins, with all the delight that the Fallen take in pointing out hypocrisy. "Wouldn't score many souls for eternal torment if the way there was unpleasant." He hands their server enough to cover their bill as she tends to their table.

Aziraphale dabs the at his mouth delicately with a linen napkin, feeling the demon's eyes on him. "Why Crowley, thank you," he says ever so sweetly. "That's so very Kind of you, an act of Charity, perhaps?"

Crowley knows this game too. He peers over the rims of his sunglasses for a moment before gazing off, feigning disinterest. "Nah, just trying to get out of here before you order another one. Can't sit here watching you fill that pretty mouth all day."

Brazen, shameless thing. Centuries ago, Aziraphale would have either flushed at the lewd remark, or not noticed it all as it flew a mile over his head. But now, he falls into step. "How terrible that would be for you."

But Crowley is bowing out, a corner of his mouth twitching up fondly. "Come on, then, I mean it. Things to see, people to damn."

So there it is. Crowley, Hell's liaison on Earth, has absolutely no reason to associate with Aziraphale other than to try and tempt him, which he is not doing, ergo, there must be _another_ reason. Companionship? Friendship? Pursuit of a physical relationship? Aziraphale doesn't think demons can love, though they definitely can flirt.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Recently**

Their first time is hesitant, so painfully slow, Crowley soaked through with fear and hunger, Aziraphale pressing ahead with the single-minded clarity of the faithful.

"Angel," Crowley growls, as if the pet name is a protective ward that will keep Aziraphale holy. "Angel, this is dangerous."

Aziraphale smiles and kisses him, pressing him back against the headboard. "It will be alright." Another kiss, to his neck. "I know it." Another, to his shoulder. "I believe it."

Crowley does not let himself seize Aziraphale's hair, keeps his sharp-fingered hands away from the thing he wants the most. "You have no idea what you do to me. What I can do to you."

Aziraphale stops and looks up at him, wickedly. "Likewise, my dear." Crowley groans and gives in to the angel's hands and mouth, lets him peel layers of black fabric away, every touch a burn that sends coils of Lust straight through him. Lust, and following close behind, Avarice. There is nothing that he wants more desperately than Aziraphale, this body against his, only his, not just for now, forever and ever, even when it's all over, and if Aziraphale is in Heaven he can't follow, he has to--

_No._

He pushes Aziraphale back, one of his nails digging into the soft white skin of his chest. A red spot wells up with blood, taunting him, _you've hurt your favorite thing in all the world, all you can do is ruin_ , but Aziraphale is still all calm benevolence, how can he be this way? He scrabbles back, tugs his loosened trousers back around his hips. "Angel, don't change," he rasps. His own wretched being fights him, tries to make him swallow the words. "Don't become... Don't make me beg you."

Aziraphale sits back on his heels. "Darling," he says. "Of course we don't have to do anything you don't want to. But you _do_ want to, yes?"

Crowley swallows, ignores the soft skin of Aziraphale's throat where he tore his collar loose, ignores the artery beating his pulse like a war drum below the surface. "Not for what it will cost you."

"The only cost to us has been centuries of wasted time," Aziraphale says. He sounds so kind, so reasonable that Crowley is certain he's actually in Hell, undergoing a formal reprimand for his Apocalyptic cock-up. Lucifer had sounded awfully reasonable too. "They have no hold over us anymore." He moves up to settle on one hip next to Crowley, takes the demon's hand and places it over the puncture mark on his chest. The blood smokes and stings against Crowley's skin; he grits his teeth, and the miracle burns no less as Aziraphale heals himself. "There, no harm done." He turns Crowley's hand over and presses a kiss to his palm.

When the angel looks up again, Crowley meets his eyes, and how could he have been so stupid, so blind? There's no benevolence there, but Love, in all its terrible glory. He's helpless, pinned to the spot as Aziraphale leans over him.

"But I do intend to make you beg, my love."

There's nothing he can do but shudder and let Aziraphale do as he likes, _fuck_ , he'd give him anything. Thick fingers explore every wiry inch of him, thumbs digging into hipbones, a warm thigh between his legs. He writhes and twists beneath the angel, wordless, pressing up against him until he can't bear it anymore, then pulling back gasping. Aziraphale takes his time, the bloody hedonist, holding Crowley by the hair and leaving marks on his flesh with his mouth as he grinds against him slowly, deliberately, whispering soft reassurances and cruel invocations into his ear.

"You're so gorgeous beneath me like this. I knew you would be. I wanted you for so long, you know that, don't you? Wanted to hold you, to take care of you. I decided I wanted it a long time ago, but it just never seemed like the right time. I'm sorry, darling, I wish we hadn't had to wait for so long." He's so tender, so perfect. Crowley squirms, the fear still deep in the pit of his stomach. When the angel leans back to admire the object of his affections, Crowley turns over on his elbows and knees. _Get thee behind me, angel._

"LIke thisss," he says thickly. Maybe it will be safer this way, if Aziraphale is in control.

"Oh my," Aziraphale breathes. "You _are_ coming undone, aren't you? You wanton thing." He rakes blunt fingertips down Crowley's back and wastes no time pressing them into him. Crowley buries his face against the pillow, inhaling the comforting paper-and-tea-leaf smell. It's not enough, he wants more, he's never wanted anything more in his life, and he's never been more afraid for it. He remembers Lot and his family; he won't look back for fear of what he might see.

"More," he mutters against the white fabric, barely audible, but of course Aziraphale knows. He's so desperate the whole block probably knows, even if they don't understand why they all suddenly feel so needful.

"Easy, love," Aziraphale chides as he works him open. "There's more than one way to be cruel, you know. That is what you want, isn't it?"

He muffles a pathetic sound with the pillow, resisting the urge to bite it with his sharp teeth. _Yes, anything, just love me and don't take it away. Let me have this one thing for my own, and let it be you. This can't be real, this isn't real, what could you want this for..._

"As for what I want, my dear," Aziraphale says, pulling his fingers out (had he spoken aloud?). "I want you to accept what you have denied yourself, and what has been denied to you all these long years. Can you do that for me? Look at me, darling." He can't move, can't look, can't be complicit in this, won't see the Grace go out of the angel's eyes, won't have it be his fault. "Crowley, I said _look at me_."

The power in the angel's voice compels him to turn his head and look back over his shoulder. Aziraphale is radiant, his Mercy manifesting in the visible spectrum, prickling Crowley's skin with goosebumps. He hasn't seen anything so beautiful since...

"Can you do that for me? I need to hear you say it." Aziraphale's eyes are full of Light, the way they all used to look when the universe was young, and his wings are just visible, a faint outline, the opposite of a shadow, stretching high over them both.

It's too overwhelming, all of it, the want, and the fear, and the ache that needs to be released, and the inevitable fallout thereafter. The thought of making space for _that_ inside himself, of being Known. But the space was always there, he thinks dizzily, just empty for so long he forgot what it was like to be filled. He searches for something familiar to grasp onto, and settles on spite. "Just go on and do it already," he snarls. Demons aren't made to love.

Aziraphale rocks into him with a sigh, a sound Crowley has heard a thousand times, for food and theatre and art and all the things the angel loves. And now he's making that sigh just for _him_ , for the pleasure of sinking into his body and claiming it. He cries out and grinds back, overtaken by Lust, a warm front crashing against the cold front of Aziraphale's divine Love, birthing a storm. The delicious response from his corporation battles with the deep, old hurt in his soul, forced to confront and reckon with itself in the face of the glimpse of divinity that his angel is offering him. Every time Aziraphale moves just so, there's another strike like lightning straight to his core, illuminating what was dark and empty. _Smite me down, ruin me, catch me before I hit bottom this time._

It's too much, and they're barely scratching the surface of all this, but Aziraphale has him, holds him close and breathes against his neck. "Bless you for trusting me like this."

Searing light stabs deep within him like a brand, cutting and cauterizing all at once. He is a deep dark place filled with rushing water, he is the snake ground beneath a saintly heel. He howls and collapses and reaches back, and a hand catches his and holds on, guiding him through the whiteout.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Some Time Ago**

Crowley, despite his lukewarm allegiance to whatever Hell's version of the Great Plan is (he hadn't been paying attention in that meeting), is a very good demon, and he knows it. He's ahead of the curve. Most of his colleagues are stuck a few millennia in the past, when the _en vogue_ method was to tempt humans one by one. That worked back when God was mostly paying attention to a handful of people in a small patch of desert. No, times change, and Crowley has always been able to change with them. He likes his job well enough, enjoys stirring up trouble, because it's in his nature. He suspects that even without taking credit for the hideous things humans come up with on their own, he'd have a higher productivity count than any other single demon in Hell. He'd be bloody Employee of the Month since the dawn of time if Hell believed in worker morale. But like all jobs, it gets dull at times, and sometimes he just wants something different.

That's where Aziraphale comes in. He had truly been prepared to hate him when they'd first met, and look where they were now. Something about the angel is addictive. Crowley wants to flick his tongue out and taste him, to coil around his deliciously soft body and memorize the way he feels, to open his mouth wide and swallow him whole. He wants to take his pleasure from the angel's corporation, and then go even deeper, to the core of him, and let himself be burned by the white light within him, the moth chasing the flame. He wants the angel to be cruel to him in return, to punish him for his transgressions. He wants to possess him completely, and be possessed. He wants, he wants, he wants...

Sometimes Crowley goes against his nature, because if nothing else, rebellion keeps things interesting. And so he does not pursue these desires overtly, does not try to tempt Aziraphale. To be sure, he'd experimented with it once or twice, early on, just to see if it would take. What kind of demon would he be if he hadn't at least tried? He'd extended his infernal energy toward Aziraphale, probing for the edges of the angel's defenses, seeking out a weak point. And just when he thought he'd found one, he was hit with a shock of what had to be divine Love. An instinct, surely, and Aziraphale was none the wiser. Crowley felt a bit ill afterward, and gave up.

But that doesn't mean that he leaves Aziraphale alone, no. He hangs around, circles him like a lazy hawk, swooping in now and again to take him to the theatre, or to little hole in the wall restaurants where human families have been perfecting their recipes for generations. He looks at him from behind the safety of dark glasses. For in the angel's presence, something happens to him, beyond the metaphysical discomfort of being around an agent of the Divine, which in human corporation makes his skin itch and tingle. He doesn't really mind the slight hum of pain anyway; it seems appropriate, seems correct. But this is something _else_ , something magnetic that he can't quite name. He likes to watch the angel enjoying the world, sighing at a lush musical phrase, sating himself on frivolous food that he doesn't need, becoming beautifully flushed after a few glasses of wine. The way he can sully himself with material things yet remain so perfectly beyond reproach fascinates Crowley. Although the urge to touch and to take never goes away, tempting the angel toward a Fall no longer seems satisfying. He likes him just as he is, and he is content to watch and bask in his glow.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Presently**

"And then," Crowley says, pressing him into the wall, "Oh, then, I could have _devoured_ you."

Aziraphale tilts his head back, baring his neck to the Serpent. _I trust you._ Crowley strikes quickly and accurately, hot breath and scraping teeth and clever tongue. He bites down where Aziraphale's neck meets his shoulder, and Aziraphale closes his eyes rapturously. "Always so hungry."

"Speak for yourself," Crowley says, trailing his hand down the buttons of Aziraphale's waistcoat and willing them open. "I would have eaten you right up like one of your little desserts. Angel food cake," he grins into Aziraphale's neck as he tugs at his tie.

"Mmm," he says. "You'd like that, I'm sure. Melts in the mouth."

"Insubstantial," Crowley disagrees, reaching lower, grasping too greedily, too soon. "Not like you."

Aziraphale swats his hand away. "Patience. Let me, before you ruin my clothes."

"Oh, _please_ let me ruin your clothes," Crowley teases, reaching again.

Aziraphale sidesteps him, frowning in disapproval. "You're being a brat. On your knees, then, if you can't behave." Oh, but he _is_ luscious, especially as he sinks obediently to the floor, sun-bright eyes following every move of Aziraphale's hands as he neatly divests himself of his tie, his jacket, his waistcoat, his shirt, his undershirt, his ring, and his shoes.

"May I undress too, sir?" he hears as he turns his back to hang up his jacket. He doesn't need to see Crowley's face to imagine the sarcastic curl of his lip.

"No, you may not. Saucy thing." He turns back and indeed, there is his ridiculous, feral, lovely little demon, looking up at him with a razor-sharp smile. What a wonderful thing that Crowley can be so playful now. He had been so frightened their first time, understandably so, and Aziraphale had needed to guide him with a firm, faithful hand. "Now show some deference and hush."

"Make me," Crowley says, defiant. "Show me how virtuous you are. Show me how much you _love_ me."

Aziraphale nears him, cups his chin in his hand. "Oh, darling, you know I do. Can't you feel it?" He feels the transfer of energy, sending just a taste of his light into the demon's black void. Crowley shudders and accepts it, his eyes squeezing shut. This would send most demons screaming, would have been too much for Crowley to handle once; Crowley, still so unrepentant and bitter, so clever and so cautious, so _brave_. Aziraphale doesn't know if either of them can ever truly change, but they are not the same people they were six thousand years ago. "This will all be for your own good," he says, pulling away and sitting on the edge of the bed. "Come here, serpent."

Even panting and subdued, Crowley still manages to convey _swagger_ on his knees. "It's a gift," he'd told Aziraphale once. He nuzzles his way between Aziraphale's legs, mouthing and nipping up his thighs, his hands following soon after. Aziraphale likes his corporation, how it's warm and comfortable and gives Crowley plenty to hold onto. Crowley's hands snake up to his belt and work him free, already half-hard. He glances up at Aziraphale, eyes darkening with Lust, his own dark energies playing at the edges of Aziraphale's power. The angel lowers his defenses just a bit to let the feeling in, this raw _desirewantneedhungerNOW_. It's sweet and smoky and intoxicating, enough to make him ready, now hard and thick at the corner of Crowley's mouth. He cups Crowley's jaw again, pressing a thumb into his mouth, against sharp teeth, against the eager tongue, then nudges himself in.

Crowley shivers, long spine undulating and head bobbing, the dark ringlets of hair too beautiful not to touch. Aziraphale runs his fingers through them, hearing Crowley hum at the contact, encouraging him to be a little rough. Holding on gently, he lets Crowley set his pace, while still reminding him of his control. Only one of Crowley's hands is on him; he's certain the other is palming at himself through his jeans, but he'll permit it for now. Now Crowley's forked tongue laves down either side of him, now it somehow thins and wraps around him, moving independently of his lips. Brilliant, brazen creature, how is it that he gives himself to an angel so? He suddenly feels too close, and he pulls Crowley back by the hair.

"How does it feel, love?" he asks, pulling Crowley up to kiss him.

"It burns," Crowley hisses. "Let me swallow, let it burn all the way down."

Aziraphale laughs. "You will be the end of me, dear."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Some Time Ago**

They usually meet at the park in the daytime, when the ducks are hungry and there are enough people around that they're unlikely to stand out. Now, however, it's dark, the familiar paths shadowy, the lake quiet and still. They've just attended the formal opening of the National Gallery, which Crowley had declared "embarrassing," and Aziraphale had very generously assessed as "a good start".

"Look, if you do the one in Cork, I'll handle the one in the colonies, I've got to travel that way soon anyway," Crowley wheedles. He's gotten very good at it. These days Aziraphale is content to take him up on most of his offers for their Arrangement, and only pretends to resist because they both enjoy the verbal sparring. He likes Crowley's jokes in particular, his dark sense of humor, the hint of suggestion in his voice when he leans in close to tell Aziraphale about a temptation he needs him to do, the show he makes of being disgusted by the blessings and miracles he picks up on Aziraphale's behalf.

"They're not colonies anymore," Aziraphale reminds him. "They _rebelled_. Fifty some-odd years ago, now."

"Yes, yes, how could I forget. Good on them, that never backfired on anyone." His tone is light, but Aziraphale hears the dark edge scraping through. He's not sure what has the demon in such a mood, but he gets like this once a century or so, bitterness rising to the surface like a dead fish. Aziraphale wants to press him, he has ever so many questions. When Aziraphale thinks about Falling, his stomach drops away. _What was it like? Did it hurt? Do you regret it? If you could do it all over again... would you stay?_

Instead he asks, "What's in it for you, anyway? Cork's just a hop, skip, and a jump from here." The not-colonies are an ocean away. Weeks of travel by boat, if either of them is to do it properly.

"Remember that business with Saint Patrick?" The demon pulls a face. "I'm persona non grata in Ireland. Rather not go if I don't have to."

"Still, all that time at sea," Aziraphale says. "Terrible food, and damp. Humans getting sick. Rats everywhere."

Crowley shrugs. "You should really learn how to sleep, angel. I'll coil up in a corner somewhere and hey-presto, I'm there before I know it. Office thinks I'm working the whole time and I don't have to put any paperwork in for miracle transport."

Aziraphale wrinkles his nose. "I'll never understand what you like so much about sleeping." Choosing oblivion when there's so much to do and see in the world. Aziraphale spends his nights bringing comfort to wretched, forgotten people in the darkest places of London, and returns home to read until dawn.

Crowley is quiet, doesn't make the predictable joke about Sloth being a virtue. He slows his pace, comes to a stop at the water's edge. His hands are restless. "Don't you ever get tired, angel?" _Oh._ Aziraphale lets his face soften, turns toward Crowley, but the demon is gazing out over the lake, toward a shore that he cannot possibly see. Does the millstone of damnation weigh heavy even on the Fallen? Aziraphale can feel his energy crackling like a thundercloud, dark and violent and threatening to spill over.

Carefully, Aziraphale reaches out and takes one of Crowley's fidgeting hands in his own. The thin fingers, the thin body, all go very still. And carefully, so very carefully, Aziraphale lets his Mercy brush up feather-light against the tempest. For is it not his duty, his most sacred task, to ease suffering? He senses Crowley choking down whatever sound instinctively rose up in him, but the demon cannot stop his hand from clenching around Aziraphale's, surprisingly strong. His nails seem sharper than they had a moment before; they dig into the soft flesh of Aziraphale's palm. How interesting, he thinks.

"It's alright," he says softly. "Won't you take those glasses off, dear? It's so dark already." _Let just a little light in. A little hope._ Crowley hesitates but does as he's asked, as Aziraphale guessed he would. He's long suspected that Crowley would do almost anything, if he asked it of him. The demon's jaw clenches, his mouth a thin-pressed knifecut, and he turns those sulfuric eyes toward Aziraphale. The cool, snake-smooth hand, with hellfire blazing through the veins underneath, the roaring of sin and pain and pride -- it all washes over Aziraphale but cannot harm him, never could.

"Be not afraid," he whispers, the salutation of angels sent to Earth, and presses a kiss to Crowley's white-knuckled hand. He opens himself up to receive in kind, to feel the demon as he truly is, and how could he have known? Crowley is the chaotic dream between waking hours; he is the match that strikes too close to the powderkeg; he is the pull of the tide that sweeps into dark waters. He is the question that demands an answer and screams itself hoarse, to whatever end, to ruin. Now he hears Crowley's breath catch and become heavy, and he senses fear and ache and hope, and oh Lord, such _covetousness_. Is it possible that all demons can _feel_ as powerfully as this one does? He's never seen this expression on his friend's face before, this needfulness, and they're so close, the space between them is so small, he could...

And then it's closed off, like an iron gate slamming shut -- _abandon all hope, ye who enter here_ \-- and Crowley is pulling his hand back, cramming his sunglasses onto his face once more, and staring determinedly across the lake. "I didn't--" he starts. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets as if protecting himself. "I've tempted you. I didn't intend-- I didn't do it on purpose."

No, he's not protecting _himself_ , Aziraphale realizes. Oh, how he wants to shelter this poor creature, uncover and soothe his secret hurts. "No," he says gently. "No, you haven't."

"Must have done." His tone is flat, an ocean pretending to be a puddle.

"No, my dear, you've done nothing wrong," he assures. They're still so close, close enough for a touch on the shoulder, a touch on the arm, on the cheek. He doesn't dare. "I only wanted to comfort you. I'm sorry if it was unwelcome, but it was entirely my idea."

"That's what you're meant to think, angel, that's how it works." Crowley now sounds frustrated, upset. He takes his hands out of his pockets and promptly puts them back again, sighing. "It's probably good that I'm going. Probably for the best."

"If you think so," Aziraphale says, in an acquiescent voice that usually comes out in conversations with Gabriel.

"Mm." Crowley turns toward him, finally, glasses reflecting nothing but moonlight. "Yeah. Look, don't forget about Cork."

Aziraphale nods, adopts a thin-lipped smile that he doesn't feel. "Consider it done."

"Right. See you around, then." And he slinks away, a shadow overtaken by shadows.

It's many decades before Aziraphale sees him again. Half a world away, a snake sleeps unnoticed in the hold of a ship, his world a peaceful blackness, peppered with starlike dreams that whisper to him of Mercy.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Recently**

The bookshop is all there and then some, remade even better than before.

"Good lad," Aziraphale says approvingly, as he darts from shelf to shelf, seeing everything in order.

"Good lad, he's the bloody son of Satan," Crowley scoffs. He breathes on the lenses of his sunglasses, polishes them against his shirt, and puts them in his pocket.

"Yes, but he turned out alright, in the end." A good wine is never far from reach here, and Aziraphale is delighted to discover a few new bottles have somehow manifested in his cupboard as well.

"Is it the end, d'you think? Really?" Crowley sounds doubtful. How quickly they fall right into their roles, Aziraphale thinks. The averted Apocalypse was no mere intermission, it would have been curtains for them. Will they parry and dance like this forever, when they've been gifted this second chance?

"It's _an_ end. The end of the End Times. And fortunately, also a beginning, my dear. Cheers."

"Cheers," he echoes. "The beginning of what, I wonder?"

Usually Aziraphale would sit across from him in the armchair, but instead he settles next to Crowley, who is sprawled on the sofa, propped up on a pillow, long legs everywhere. "Of anything. Anything we want. It's not written."

Crowley quirks an eyebrow but doesn't move to make any extra room. "Could be written somewhere. Lost in a file cabinet." He swirls his glass and drains it, holding it out for another. "How long do you think we've got? Realistically."

Adam Young's words echo in Aziraphale's mind. _"I know all about you two. Don't worry."_ What did he mean by that? Was it foolish to hope--?

"I don't care," Aziraphale declares with a boldness that makes Crowley crack a broad smile, the one of delighted surprise, the one that makes it all the way to his eyes, the one that he'd once smiled at an angel who gave his flaming sword away to the first humans. Aziraphale refills his glass and smiles right back, feeling positively free. "It's so nice to see your eyes," he breathes.

Crowley nearly chokes on his wine. Before he can muster a clever deflection, Aziraphale beams at him and moves forward, puts his mouth on wine-stained lips, inhaling the demon's peatmoss smoky scent, feeling the magnetic tug of the dark aura surrounding him. Their wine glasses materialize safely on the table to save his pristine antique sofa (and to prevent wasting the wine). Crowley's hands won't stay put, roaming from his hair to his hips and back again.

"Aziraphale," Crowley says roughly, the slightest hiss coming through on the sibilant. "I want this, I do, but... you don't know what you're starting."

"We can do anything we want. We don't have to be afraid anymore," he says. "Crowley, I've known you for six thousand years. You're my dearest friend. My only friend, truly." He looks down at Crowley, so beautiful, so different from himself, from anyone else, the one person who would stand with him against all of Heaven and Hell. In Crowley's eyes there flickers hope; and in the set of his jaw, hope is ground between his teeth before it can take hold. _Let me nurture that hope, let it take root and blossom. Our own Garden, something strange and new._ Aziraphale feels his heart might burst from the thrill of it. He takes a tone he thinks Crowley will like, watches as his breath quickens. "I know what makes you tick, dear. I know exactly what I'm starting."

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Some Time Ago**

Being an angel of average intelligence, which is to say that after millennia of learning, he made Isaac Newton look as bright as a single-celled organism, Aziraphale could readily identify the two moments that he admitted to himself that he might feel something more than friendship toward his infernal counterpart.

The first was a moonlit summer evening in Paris (it would be, he supposed; if one was to fall in love, that was the place to do it, and Aziraphale liked to do things right). They hadn't even been drinking, that was important. Crowley was always amenable to sharing a bottle or five with him, and loosened up considerably under the influence of alcohol, but no, on this particular night they were sober as judges, strolling along the Seine. Aziraphale had said something to make Crowley laugh -- not sneer, not grin sardonically, but genuinely throw his head back and laugh -- and Aziraphale was taken by his beauty. The bright moonlight shining on his pale skin and catching in his hair, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes just visible at the edges of his glasses, the wide smile making him look, just for a moment, carefree. He looked as if the weight of damnation had been lifted from him, and with it, the need for sarcasm and pretense and detachment. Aziraphale had felt a warmth blooming inside him then, and decided he would very much like to see Crowley look like that as often as possible, and if he was the one to make it happen, so much the better.

But Aziraphale is no fool, he is under no illusions about what Crowley is. And if the first moment made him realize he might love him, the second made him consider that his feelings might not be entirely _pure_. They'd been on their way to dinner in Toledo, both being there for business, when they'd passed by the cathedral.

"Oh! This is it!" he had exclaimed.

"This is what, a den of self-righteousness and hypocrisy?" Crowley scowled, looking sideways at the building.

" _Really_ , Crowley. No, it's just that I'm meant to perform a miracle here."

"Oh? What's the assignment?"

Aziraphale looked away delicately, pretending to admire the Gothic architecture. "Better not to say, I think."

"Well, it's not like I can do anything about it once you're inside," Crowley said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Big fancy house of holiness like this." He scuffed the ground with his shoe. "I'll wait."

"Oh. Right, then," Aziraphale said. "They'll hold our table, I'm sure."

"If they know what's good for them," Crowley answered. _Go on before I have to change my mind_ , his look said, and Aziraphale bounded up the steps and inside.

It didn't take him long to find his mark, a nun with a long life of charity work and eventual sainthood ahead of her, once Aziraphale convinced her cancer cells to turn into perfectly healthy ones. When he returned outside, there was Crowley, waiting as promised, sprawled out on the steps. Perhaps his eyes were closed as he basked in the light of the setting sun, because he didn't see Aziraphale at first. The angel took a second to marvel at him, all sharp angles and dark looks, the red sunlight catching in his hair and making it glow like embers. How defiantly lonesome he looked out here, waiting outside this place that he could not enter, that his very presence defiled, and what was this if not the embodiment of their entire relationship? Was it blasphemous to like it, to find him lovely and perfect just as he was?

As Aziraphale drew closer, Crowley looked up but didn't rise, and that was the most intoxicating thing. The demon, _his_ demon, he deliriously thought, gazing up at him, an angel, from down at his feet. He felt powerful, in control. As if Aziraphale had smitten him down himself, and now Crowley could do nothing but await the consequences. A sensation went through him that was not very holy at all. He wished he could see Crowley's eyes, see them glint in the sun and search them for any sign that this is exactly where he wanted to be. How long would he have waited? _How long had he already been waiting?_

"All finished with your mysterious do-gooding, then?" Crowley said, breaking the spell, still not rising.

"If you must know, I healed a nun bound for sainthood," he answered. "The effects of her works will benefit her community for generations to come." Crowley sniffed, unimpressed. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"I said I was going to wait, didn't I?" Aziraphale made an exasperated gesture toward the steps. "Ah," Crowley said, placing his hands on his knees and unfolding upward to stand. "Consecration wears off faster out here on the street, it seems. Too many other influences." He grinned, implying that he must be doing something right. Or wrong, as it were. "Shall we?"

From then on Aziraphale had kept that memory close, and entertained rare fantasies of what the demon might look like on his knees.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Recently**

He's drained and ready to sleep for a decade, body used and pliant. He feels like a centuries, no, millennia-old itch has been scratched; he is thoroughly satisfied and melting into the bed.

The bed. Not his own bed. Aziraphale's.

His eyes fly open and he finds he's curled up against the angel's chest, Aziraphale's fingers carding through his hair. "There, you're alright," he soothes, as if expecting the panic.

"Aziraphale, we--" He sits up and seizes the angel's face in his hands, searching his eyes for anything different. "Do you feel-- you didn't--"

Aziraphale's hands cover his, stilling him. "Crowley," he says gently. "Feel me, Crowley." He tries to relax. And yes, there it is, the unmistakeable tingle, the itch under his skin, the sensation of _other_. Crowley seizes both hands and clings on, savoring the gutdeep sting in the proximity of Virtue.

"How?" he demands. "How in the--" A string of oaths and blasphemies in forgotten languages spill from his lips. Even his eyes sting now. He pretends not to notice.

"Oh, my dear. I don't know. Maybe something has changed? Maybe we're protected, or maybe it never would have happened all along. All the time we've spent, dancing around one another." Crowley lets himself be pulled back down against the angel's chest. A small part of him protests at the softness, tells him to spit and bite and reject this surely temporary refuge. He stomps the instinct down. _Let me have this._

"I do love you," says Aziraphale. "Part and parcel, every bit of you." He doesn't respond to that, how can he? But the angel just goes on. "I know I was harsh with you, it seemed like that was what you wanted, and you are so dear to me, I so want to please you, and keep you close."

"Angel," Crowley croaks. He feels-- he doesn't know what he's feeling. "I want that." He thinks about what next to say, bids his traitorous tongue to keep the bile out, and mostly succeeds. "But you say such pretty things to me, you always have. I'd give you anything, do anything. But I can't... I can't give you what you're trying to give me." The effort of sincerity makes his throat scratch and his jaw ache. It's alright. Aziraphale will soon tire of this and they'll go back to how it was before, to their comfortable companionship and their little games.

Aziraphale tilts Crowley's chin up and holds his gaze. "Listen to me, and listen well," he says, low and sure. "I know who you are. I say what I say because that is my truth. Your truth is in your actions. And I do not think you would have acted as you have all these years, if you did not care. In your own way."

There is no lie in Aziraphale's words. Aziraphale never lies to him. Something rises up in Crowley's throat, tries to stop him from speaking. "Aziraphale, I feel too much," he rasps.

"I know, my love," the angel whispers, kissing his brow and easing him into sleep against his shoulder.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Some Time Ago**

The Devil finds work for idle hands, as the humans so quaintly put it, and they're not wrong. A tendency toward boredom is an inherent quality in demons, as the Devil needs those hands to do his work. (Boredom is also one of the top three most popular ways to get tempted into a free entry ticket to Downstairs, right up there with tribalism and sadly, sheer desperation.) Lord Beelzebub has practically made boredom into an art form, which is why ze is so terrifying -- that and the swarms of flies -- you never know what horrible thing someone will do for a moment of entertainment.

All of this is to say that Crowley gets bored easily, and when he tires of sowing discord and causing power failures and whispering vile nothings into people's ears, he'll go see what Aziraphale is up to. Sometimes he'll bring a bottle of wine, or an exotic treat from his faraway travels, sometimes a book or rare artifact. It keeps him in the angel's good graces, makes Aziraphale quicker to forgive him when he oversteps or has to take on a particularly nasty assignment. Lately he's taken to lurking in the bookshop as a huge black snake; he naps in sunbeams and frightens customers and sees how long it takes Aziraphale to notice him. The first time, Aziraphale had discovered him, he'd startled the angel so much that he'd jolted him straight out of snake form and sent him crashing from the top of a tall bookshelf down to the floor. It wasn't a smiting, but it _hurt_.

"Hey! Ow!" a suddenly very-human shaped Crowley had said. He covered his head with his arms as another book toppled onto him.

"Crowley?" The angel sounded as though he was prepared to be angry, but was settling instead for irritation. "What the de-- rather-- well-- what in the world are you doing here?" He made a gesture and the books flew obediently back to their shelves, not a page rumpled or out of place.

Crowley groaned and rubbed at his elbow. "Hello to you too."

"Are you _lurking_?" Aziraphale asked. "Don't think you can hide from me, demon, you're not half as sneaky as you think. Have you nothing better to do than skulk around my shop?"

"Not really," he said. He thought about getting up but rather liked the way Aziraphale was looking at him, and the sternness of his voice, like he had some choice ideas about what to do with him. "Just in the area, thought I'd pop 'round."

"Hmph. Pride cometh before a fall," he said primly. Then, "Oh, do get up before a customer comes in. I haven't hurt you, have I?"

"Nothing compared to the big one, angel." He climbed to his feet and stretched out, unable to resist putting on a little show. He had such a nice corporation, might as well put it to use, and teasing wasn't the same as tempting, after all. "I'd say you owe me a drink, though, to make it up to me."

"The cheek of you, really," Aziraphale tuts, turning away down the aisle and gesturing for Crowley to follow. "A lovely Cheval Blanc mysteriously arrived last month. That was from you, wasn't it?"

Since then, when Aziraphale comes across him slithering through the stacks, or coiled up atop a shelf, he lets him be, sometimes even talks to him, in a way that certain houseplants could only dream of. What this pure, spotless being gets out of it is beyond him, but Crowley rather likes being a fixture there, not being something who has snuck or tempted his way in, but something the angel _permits_ , something he chooses to allow. Once he'd even swept right over him with a feather duster, and Crowley had been about to say something indignant when he saw Aziraphale's wry expression, the twitch of his mouth, something bordering on affection. Then he was very glad for the inscrutability of the reptilian face. He hasn't forgotten St. James Park, before he went to America. He hasn't forgotten the warmth of Aziraphale's hand, the softness of his lips, the agonizing drag of Mercy across his black heart. It's not for him to have, some hunger is not meant to be slaked, but he is permitted here, and he will keep coming back as long as Aziraphale will have him. _Please notice me. Please don't get bored of me. Please let me stay._

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Presently**

"Come up here with me," Aziraphale says, helping Crowley up from the floor. His knees ache and his mouth is wet and okay, maybe there are such a thing as trousers that are too tight. "And do take some of that off."

"I thought you'd never ask." Immediately he miracles their remaining clothes away. Draping his arms over Aziraphale's shoulders, he lets the angel admire him.

"You are incorrigible," Aziraphale murmurs, leaning into his stomach to plant soft kisses there. "Now, dear boy, I believe you were telling me about your intentions toward me on the walls of Eden. Whatever would a wily adversary such as yourself do if we were there now?"

Crowley blesses. This angel, _honestly_. " _I'm_ incorrigible," he laughs. "Well, angel, I suppose I'd hike up my robe and show you a good time."

Aziraphale is very bad at hiding when he's feeling smug. He settles back against the pillows, propped against the headboard. "Go on, then."

Crowley shakes his head and imagines it. He remembers being comfortable in Eden, sunning himself on rocks and laying on the still-warm stone wall after the sun went down. You could see so many stars from there. "I suppose I might have been up on the wall one evening," he says, trailing a hand down his own chest so Aziraphale can watch.

"What are you doing up here?" Aziraphale asks. He remembers him, too, kind eyes and sun-warmed shoulders.

"Keeping warm on the stone. Come sit with me." He doesn't stop touching himself as he nestles beside Aziraphale, long sharp fingers playing over his chest, his stomach, his thighs.

Aziraphale watches, pretends to disapprove. "I have no objection to conversation, but this behavior is really--"

"You've seen them, haven't you?" he says. He presses himself against the angel's body. It makes him shiver, sends a hum through him, like it always does. "It didn't take them long to figure it out. Such clever creatures, and so creative." He drapes one leg over Aziraphale's, looks up at him from beneath dark lashes, long curls falling across his cheek. "And not a bad way to stay warm at night."

"But we are not human," Aziraphale says. "We have no need for such things." He rests his hand on Crowley's neck, thumb stroking delicately, possessively over the ridges of his throat. "How dare you try to tempt me, demon. You must be truly desperate to be so transparent."

"Oh, truly, truly I am, angel," he breathes. He grinds against Aziraphale's hip, seeking relief against the soft flesh there. "Are you sure you're not curious? I promise it doesn't hurt." Before Aziraphale can respond, he straddles him and licks teasingly at his ear. "I know they sounded like they were in pain, but that's not what it was at all."

"You-- you fiend, what are you doing to me?" Aziraphale cries out, gasping his pleasure as Crowley takes him in a slick hand. "Oh, ohh--"

"Rather like that, yes. Feels good, doesn't it? And you've gone to the trouble to make such a _nice_ effort," Crowley says. "I think you must have done it for me, just for me to enjoy."

"Greedy little thing. Avarice is a sin." Aziraphale's chest is flushed; he bites his lip as he watches.

Crowley focuses on Aziraphale's face as he lines himself up. It's only a game, it's fun because it didn't happen, because it can't happen, because this gorgeous incorruptible being has _chosen_ him. "Yes," he hisses, sinking down onto him. "And you're _mine_."

For long moments neither of them can speak. Crowley rocks slowly atop him, adjusting easily to the stretch but not to the power that floods through him like an electrical current. He shivers and lets the Light seep into the cracks in him, swirling in the eddies of the void and pouring deeper, deeper. Aziraphale is a mountain, an ocean, a nebula, contained in this unassuming corporation, and Crowley is its dark mirror; they are binary stars locked in eternal orbit. He starts to move more urgently, wildly. Aziraphale's voice is there in his head, all around him. _"Feel me, Serpent of Eden, like I feel you."_ This angel, Satan preserve him, that precious, wonderful bastard. Oh, if he had tried this in Eden it surely would have killed him, burned him up like a meteor hitting atmosphere.

_What do you feel, angel?_ he thinks. _What could possibly compare?_

Aziraphale pulls him down for a kiss, and shows him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading, please leave a comment and tell me what you think!


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